Will people really be enticed to play Combat because Blade Flurry is removed?

I'm not even trying to be ornery, but I don't understand Ghostcrawler's logic with this comment:

Yes. Combat had just become "swap on cleave fights only." A cleave advantage is fine, but it was too far off.

So by removing Blade Flurry completely players will now be more likely to swap to Combat for what reason? It certainly won't be PVP, where both other specs already outperform Combat. Now with Mutilate having better single target, and multi-target DPS, what does Ghost Crawler expect players to "swap to combat" for? Nothing?

And also, I was playing Combat prior to 4.0.6 because our Guild Leader wanted the Savage Combat debuff (we had two other Mutilate Rogues), and when 4.0.6 came out and the 5% increase to Vitality (the same "buff" we're receiving to compensate the loss of Blade Flurry) came out, my guild mates and I laughed at the fact that it didn't even give me a 1% damage increase on our parses. And this was with the accompanying buffs to Revealing Strike and Main Gauche that we got in that same patch. 5% to Vitality by itself won't make a difference at all. I just don't understand the thought process behind this change at all.

they arent removing the cleave to make people want to play combat, they are removing the cleave because i toggled 1 button and did 30-35% more dps.

So why will people play Combat now? It's already at the point where I find myself running Mutilate more and more often because of it's superior DPS to both single, and multi-target encounters. If they want to take away the one thing that Combat had going for it, it's going to take a bigger replacement than 5% to Vitality. 5% to Vitality, Revealing Strike, and Main Gauche buffs didn't even bump my single target DPS in 4.0.6. I know this because I still couldn't get the other rogues in my guild to trade being combat so I could play mutilate for a while. They lol'd at the single target DPS still.

Recently started playing Mut more because of the incoming nerfs and I realized that the rotation in and of itself is 100% more interesting and feels extremely better too, reminds of me of end of cata rotationn for all of our specs.

the people that will play combat are the people that like combat i guess. if you want to look at it in terms of sim dps, combat will probably be closer in line to assassination with for a gara'jal style fight but still ahead in cleaving, although by hardly any impressive number.

Combat is going from, "The spec I turn to if there's a cleave involved..."
To, "The spec I never turn to."

How that's going to increase the number of Combat rogues, I simply do not know. The people who liked Combat were already playing it! This makes absolutely sure that the people who do not like it, won't have to play it.

they arent removing the cleave to make people want to play combat, they are removing the cleave because i toggled 1 button and did 30-35% more dps.

No, they are removing the cleave to make Combat more appealing, based on GC's feedback. He keeps reiterating that with the cleave toned down, people will "play Combat on more than just cleave fights" (paraphrasing) or "not feel like they have to keep a Combat spec" (paraphrasing). The second one may seem contradictory, but it implies people don't mainspec Combat in his eyes and just use it as a pocket cleave.

He definitely seems to be arguing that with its cleave specialty nerfed and ST buffed slightly, Combat will become as viable a choice in everyone's eyes as Mut. As usual he seems a wee bit disconnected from Rogues for some reason. Working with the class seems to give him a lot of trouble/confusion as a designer and he doesn't quite understand the Rogue community. That's just my personal impression based on his feedback and the dev team's decisions over time.

What is this weird assumption that Muti is far better than combat? Muti is better on lower ilvls but once you reach a decent ilvl 490ish they pretty much even out and are equal on single target, Different fights will always favor different specs, but as it is right now in end game content Muti and Combat are very equal on most fights. The reason they are removing cleave is not to discourage combat rogues, it's to fix that Muti and Sub rogues atm are often forced to switch to combat on cleave fights due to it being so OP.

does this now make sub the go to spec for 2 target ( or 3) fights for having 100% uptime on CT on the targets and due to that never needing to use rupture making it better for "cleave" fights than combat?

Sort of. His rough impression seems to be that Combat is mandatory on cleaveables and then dumped for Mut elsewhere.

Exactly. His reason for nerfing BF is not to discourage people playing combat (as there are more single target fights than cleave, period), but the players who don't want to but HAVE to. The Cleave is a sorry excuse to make Combat attractive. Your tweet got another response, btw.

Originally Posted by Twitter

@Ghostcrawler @guerrilladawg since its damage is reduced so much will you be removing or reducing the energy generation penalty?

dont see why this QQ, 100%+ dmg on cleave for a cost of 20% energy reg ... by pressin one button, yep really dont see it

they should just make it old blade flurry in my op. cleave for some sec on a 2min cd

The lack of poisons and the reduced energy regen makes Blade Flurry about a 60% DPS boost, which is not THAT far ahead of other melee's cleave abilities (see Frost DKs, for example). That is why Rogues asks themselves if this nerf is because Blade Flurry was overpowered compared to the cleave capacities of other melee's or because Rogue cleave outside Combat was lacking or nonexistent.

The lack of poisons and the reduced energy regen makes Blade Flurry about a 60% DPS boost, which is not THAT far ahead of other melee's cleave abilities (see Frost DKs, for example). That is why Rogues asks themselves if this nerf is because Blade Flurry was overpowered compared to the cleave capacities of other melee's or because Rogue cleave outside Combat was lacking or nonexistent.

Frost DKs Cleave is actually balanced around more than two Targets. If you take typical Cleave-Fights, they are in Line with most other DPS Specs.

The answer should have been bring blade flurry down some and give the other two specs better cleaving options. Thats what they did with other cleaving classes Mages all three specs have version of a cleave, both war dps specs have one etc.